Not sure which is the greater heresy, a Pinarello with a battery and motor or a Pinarello with flat pedals.

A thread

The past two-three years have been very difficult ones for me on a variety of fronts. Not to dig too deep into the issues, but my motivation to ride a bike has disappeared for the most part. Crazy, considering that's a huge part of who I am socially and professionally

I used to ride bikes a lot. Really a lot. I had time to do it, I loved doing it & I turned that passion into a little business organizing bike races & cycling events.

Something happened, though. Among other stresses in life, I developed a stress reaction that affected my heart.

My heart rate would spike in certain stressful situations, not all the time, but enough that I would frequently get lightheaded, short of breath and kinda scared. I would line up for the start of a race and my heart rate would be above 210 bmp before the race even began.

I had all the cardiology tests done, ran on a treadmill faster and steeper until I could not go any longer, and all the fun stuff. The cardiologist took scans, tests, etc. I'm 'normal' but probably have a psychosomatic stress reaction triggering heart rate bursts.

Long story short, I decided being a bike racer wasn't in the cards for me anymore. No sense risking a legit heart problem in a sport I wasn't ever going to truly excel in anyway.

So I hung up the bike, got depressed, got fat, got unhappy.

Eventually, I sold my bikes and ended up the proud owner of zero bikes while also trying to run a business centered on bikes. I got more depressed about that. I was struggling in a lot of ways and when 2020 came around, well, I struggled even more - like a lot of us.

I had invested a crap ton of credit card debt into events and had quite a bit of race-related supplies ordered and paid for so it would all be ready to go in March when the race and event season started.

As you probably know, the race and event season never got started.

I had all this product in a storage unit & all sorts of debt on credit cards because I've promised my 'hobby job' would not be a family drain. I needed to pay those debts down but had virtually no event income to do it.

I decided to get a 'real job' & got hired at a bike shop.

I'm far from a bike expert, but I was hired to help with e-commerce and marketing for Contender Bicycles - probably the best bike shop in the time zone.

I write content for the website, e-commerce stuff, emails, etc. At work, we talk bikes all the time. But I didn't own a bike.

Kinda awkward being the guy at the shop who answers the question "where'd you ride this weekend?" with "I don't actually have a bike."

I was surrounded by bikes at work. But didn't ride any of them.

So I slowly warmed up to the idea of getting a new bike.

Scouting out the next bike wasn't difficult. There are always 200+ brand new bikes on the shop floor & another 200-300 in boxes waiting to be built & sold. My job is to write about these bikes and make them irresistible to bike nerds & had options upon options.

But I also had limitations. I simply can't do hard intervals anymore. Doctors' orders.

So I started investigating e-bikes - you know, the things that was blasphemy among true bike weenies. I also wanted to get more into gravel riding. So I began looking at gravel e-bikes.

We had options on the floor. Orbea's Gain was very tempting. Cannondale had an option. But a sexy Pinarello Dyodo caught my eye almost from the very day I started working at the shop.

My wife wants me to be happy & she knew I was happier when I was riding bikes frequently.

We set a couple of goals that if/when I reached them I would get the green light to buy a new bike.

The goals were: Reach a certain dollar mark in paying of the credit card debts (both of us set that one) & lose X number of pounds.

Last week I finally reached both of those goals & thankfully there was still a 'demo' model of the Pinarello Dyodo Gravel in my size. As it turned out, the bike had never actually been out of the box. So I asked the boss what my price would be & made a deal.

Thursday, I finished the purchase and sent the bike to the wrenches to be assembled.

But I knew I would use the bike primarily as a commuter for a while. Yes, I will ride a Pinarello Dyodo Gravel as my commuter on the days I ride to/from work.

Because I didn't really want to carry an extra set of shoes in a backpack & we don't have personal lockers at the shop, I decided to go with flat pedals for now.

So there's the silly story of how I ended up with a Pinarello Dyodo Gravel with flat pedals as a daily commuter rig.